Besides eighteen special commandos, he said, were also tasked to facilitate the successful completion of the mission that was aimed at setting free eight comrades including six from Quetta. He said two important commanders from Parachinar and six from DI Khan were also released from the jail. Scores of Taliban militants escaped from the jail have reached the safe places in the South Waziristan agency, he added.
Many commentators in Pakistan have expressed their astonishment and questioned how the Taliban were able to transport their freed comrades to north or south Waziristan where military is deployed and there are dozens of military check posts in the area.
Taliban freed 384 prisoners in Bannu jail attack
The Taliban storming of the Dera Ismael Khan prison followed a similar "successful' attack on Bannu Central Jail last year.
More than 200 heavily armed Taliban militants travelling in several vehicles attacked the Central Jail in Bannu, Southern District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, releasing 384 prisoners in a pre-dawn assault on April 15, 2012.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) claimed responsibility for raiding the jail. The TTP spokesperson Asimullah Mehsud told The Express Tribune from an undisclosed location that they (TTP) attacked the jail with hundreds of fighters. "The purpose was to free some of our men", he said, adding, "We attacked with 150 militants and took over the area for more than two hours."
Among those freed was Adnan Rasheed, allegedly involved in a life attempt on former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf. Inspector General Police, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Akbar Khan Hoti, said that the whole plan seemed to have been for the release of the top militant.
Adnan Rasheed was later recaptured by the security forces. He was freed again in the Dera Imael Khan prison raid.
Military-style assaults on Abu Ghraib
The Pakistani Taliban attack on Dera Ismael attack came just one week after a similar military-style assault on infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
According to media reports, suicide bombers drove cars packed with explosives to the gates of Abu Ghraib on July 21 night and blasted their way into the compound, while gunmen attacked guards with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.
Other militants took up positions near the main road, fighting off security reinforcements sent from Baghdad as militants wearing suicide vests entered the prison on foot to help free the inmates.
Ten police officers and four militants were killed in the ensuing clashes, which continued until dawn, when military helicopters arrived, helping to regain control. By that time, hundreds of inmates had succeeded in fleeing Abu Ghraib, the prison made notorious a decade ago by photographs showing abuse of prisoners by US soldiers.
"The number of escaped inmates has reached 500. Most of them were convicted senior members of al-Qaida and had received death sentences," Hakim al-Zamili, a senior member of the security and defense committee in parliament, told Reuters.
The military-style assaults on the Abu Ghraib prison came as Iraq witnessed unprecedented sectarian violence. More than 1,000 people were killed in Iraq in July, the highest monthly death toll in five years. Iraq had never witnessed any sectarian violence before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. The sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis is attributed to the deliberate US policy of divide and rule that was formally suggested by the semi-official think-tank Rand Corporation in December 2005 to exploit Sunni, Shiite, and Arab, non-Arab divides to promote the US policy objectives in the Muslim world.
"The majority of the world's Muslims are Sunni, but a significant minority, about 15 percent of the global Muslim population, are Shi'ites".. The expectations of Iraqi Shi'ites for a greater say in the governance of their country presents an opportunity for the United States to align its policy with Shi'ite aspirations for greater freedom of religious and political expression, in Iraq and elsewhere," said the study titled US strategy in the Muslim World after 9/11.
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